Fellow Racer Tells What Really Happened During Tony Stewart’s Race

A fellow racer in the Saturday race that claimed the life of Kevin Ward Jr. has come forward with his side of the story, and what he said is very interesting. Paul Kinney was driving his No. 19K car in the race, and he saw Ward standing in the middle of the racetrack firsthand.

“I drove right by him,” Kinney told NBC News. “He looked a little bit angry. I didn’t think much of it. A lot of drivers do that.”

Kinney managed to avoid the young racer, but Tony Stewart was not so lucky. He tried to swerve past Ward, but the right side of his vehicle clipped him, killing him instantly. Now, Kinney says he finds the speculation against Stewart to be pointless.

“That’s obviously not a racing incident,” he said. “It’s not a good idea to get out of your car and run towards other cars. But nobody can speak for Tony. Only Tony knows exactly what happened.”

Kinney is so traumatized by the incident that he can’t even bare to check his Facebook, lest he happen to catch sight of the footage of the race again. He’s already seen it once, and he never wants to lay eyes on it again.

“Everybody with the racing family, they’re super close. They were crying,” he said. “It didn’t seem real. It doesn’t matter if it was Tony or not. It was just — it didn’t seem real. It was just an eerie feeling in the pits.”